Mar., 1918 IN MEMORIAM: LYMAN BELDING 55 



out of the trypot I could hardly stand. Another time, when the kikos (police- 

 men) came I went over in the head, climbed down the anchor chain, and swam 

 10 a nearby ship, where one of her crew gave me dry clothes and secreted me. 

 During those twenty-one days I spent most of the time in ships' holds, but 

 usually slept in forecastles. ' ' 



His voyage on the Julian took him to Cocos Island, and to the Galapagos 

 Islands. They stopped at Abingdon for terrapin. "We got one that would 

 weigh about 250 pounds, which was quartered for convenience in getting it to 

 the beach. The only bird I saw on the island was a pretty ground dove that 

 was so unaccustomed to men its tameness was shocking to me." 



After a cruise of four or five months the Julian returned to Honolulu, and 

 in the spring of 1853 Belding joined the bark Philomela of Portland ("an old 

 tub"). The homeward voyage proved to be a very leaky one, it being neces- 

 sary to jettison part of the cargo of guano which was loaded at the Chincha 

 Islands. He reached home January, 1854. 



"We were in the Chincha Islands during the summer of 1853 when the 

 American clipper ship was in its glory. Several large, fine clipper ships were 

 taking cargoes of guano. The Defiance was probably superior to any. In those 

 days New England sailors were numerous and inferior to none. * * * Ex- 

 cepting chilblains caused by chilly, drenching fogs of Kamchatka and the Arc- 

 tic Ocean, I had not had an ailment of any sort. Probably I was benefited by 

 sea air, a sailor's work, and plain food. I learned on the voyage the benefit of 

 a plain life, that a struggle for wealth was folly, that a man should be his own 

 master, but that to be so more or less money was needed." 



In the spring of 1854 Belding nearly lost his life by shipwreck of The 

 Crisis, while he was a passenger enroute to Baltimore from New York. When 

 off Cape Henry a squall struck her; she sank, and the people escaped in an 

 open boat, without oars, compass, water, or food. They picked up boards for 

 oars, and were rescued the following day by a large ship. While they were 

 adrift the captain and mate to keep up their spirits "told of other wrecks and 

 how Brother James and others lost their lives." 



Mr. Belding came to Stockton in March, 1856. Game was then very 

 abundant and included elk, antelope, deer, quail, and water fowl. He says : 

 "The elk of the State inhabited the tule marshes mainly, though I have seen 

 many elk horns on the Marysville Buttes, probably left there by elk which 

 came from the marshes of Butte Creek. I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, 

 of elk horns on the border of the tule swamps north of Stockton. Antelope 

 have entirely disappeared from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. I 

 saw three a few miles west of Princeton in the summer of 1870. Deer were 

 mostly in the mountains with a few along the rivers where there were extens- 

 ive thickets on bottom lands. They will continue to be common with proper 

 protection. I have seen only a few bears in the forest, probably about twenty, 

 and only one undoubted grizzly bear. This I saw in the summer of 1875, when 

 I was fishing on San Antonio Creek, near the Calaveras grove of sequoias. 



"One of my favorite hunting localities was Summit Soda Springs on the 

 North Fork of the American River. Game was abundant and deer came every 

 night to drink of the iron water. There was plenty of quail and grouse shoot- 

 ing and an abundance of trout in the river. On the Middle Fork there was 

 good trout fishing and numerous bears. 



"Beaver and otter were plentiful in the sloughs and tule marsh about 



